Interface Boat by su_liam
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Description
The 1400cbm interface boat is a workhorse seen in nearly every starport in Human Space. It is also carried by many larger starships. Although it is incapable of ftl flight, and its sublight performance is pretty limited, it excels in its basic purpose. Delivering payloads to orbit from a planetary surface and returning cargo to the surface from orbit. Although it has sufficient reaction mass to make a vectored thrust landing, in vacuo, on planets of up to half Earth's mass, it obviously depends on its lifting body design and air-breathing auxilliary engines for economic use. Starports on planets without oxygenated atmospheres typically use landing craft more specialized for their environments.
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Figured I'd upload this as I am unlikely to get anything else done this weekend. I intend to make the leading edge of the wings more rounded like wings rather than flat like brick wall. Also think some sort of cockpit, or suggestion thereof would be good. On the whole though, I think I have a good start here.
Comments (3)
TheBryster
While this is an interesting design, and I appreciate its job description, I'd lose the terrain background and replace it with an enlarged version of the thumbnail in the gallery page. As for a cockpit, perhaps you could make the inset rectangular shape at the front of the craft transparent and add the usual cockit furniture: seat, controls, people, etc.....so far so good. 4
Denger
"I find the positioning of the control surfaces intriguing, obviously an onboard computer guidance/maneuvering system. The design seems very well suited to smaller worlds with atmosphere. Our local starport could use a few of these. Which corporation manufactures this model, and is it available in my sector?" You make an excellent point about rounding the wings' leading edges; you might also consider doing the same to the wing tips, and the vertical stabilizer, as well. Would make sense, aerodynamically. Terrific concept & model!
su_liam
ooc - @TheBryster: I apologise if the thumbnail appears to be false advertising. It was a remnant from a previous, abandoned upload attempt, and I was too short of time to photoshop a new thumbnail(Sheepish look, and a twitchy shrug). Unfortunately the inset rectangular area at the front is completely imaginary, the result of the surface material. I didn't realize, when I started the render, how much faux geometry this texture would add. In retrospect I like it, but... A cockpit and more surface greeblies, hatches, etc., would do a lot to give a better sense of the scale of the thing. It's 5 meters longer, 2 meters wider at the wingspan and only 6 meters shorter in height than the space shuttle orbiter. Given its fuller shape, I would also suspect its 1,392 cubic meters of volume to be greater than the shuttle OV, too. But I'm not positive. @Denger: The control surfaces are a figment of the material I used, a spaceship hull texture that came with the program. So is the weird lip at the nose. My original uvmap had the standard gray metal plates on the dorsal surfaces, with terra cotta reentry tiles on the bottom. I think the appearance of this material was rather a felicitous accident. I like it and might see if I can export it onto my new uvmap. ic - "In tests with manual dead-brain landings she proved surprisingly responsive. In fortyseven years of service, there has only been one recorded failure of the triply redundant Seisin LK-4201 flight computer aboard the Amicus Friendship III 1400cbm Interface Boat, that being intentionally induced for the dead-brain test. The Friendship III was designed and manufactured by the Amicus Corporation Skymotive Division on Mercator. She was originally introduced as a large ship's boat aboard the Fellowship VII 70 k cbm Starliner with great success. She is currently manufactured, under license, by scores of corporations on dozens of worlds throughout Human Space. In more general terms, some variation of the 1400 cbm interface boat is pretty much ubiquitous throughout Human Space and beyond."